In the category of: Ask the experts.

The NRA tried to push doctors out of the gun debate. They responded with raw accounts from the front lines of the crisis.

Few people in the world are more familiar with gun violence than emergency room doctors and surgeons like Brandt. But until recently they’ve largely kept quiet about their experiences on the front line of this public health crisis.

That changed in November after the American College of Physicians issued new guidelines on how doctors can help protect patients from gun violence ― and the National Rifle Association responded by telling physicians to “stay in your lane.”

In effect, the NRA wanted these doctors to shut up about an issue that touches their lives daily, leading to a record high of nearly 40,000 deaths in 2017, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and around twice as many injuries each year.

The NRA retort was enough to lead many physicians to break their silence. Under the banner of “This is our lane,” surgeons and other doctors thrust themselves into the gun debate, sharing photos from inside operating rooms and telling stories about the agony of treating an unending flow of shooting victims.

In the category of: Unlikely accomplices.

How two complementary extremisms are defining global politics.

Global politics in the early 21st century is being defined by two complementary extremisms: Islamist extremism and the far right.

This is the argument that Julia Ebner, a research fellow at the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue, makes in her new book The Rage: The Vicious Circle of Islamist and Far Right Extremism. Islamist extremists like ISIS and al-Qaeda claim that the West is at war with Islam, and far-right groups like the English Defence League and Generation Identity claim that Muslims are at war with the West. This makes Islamist extremists and the far right rhetorical allies, Ebner argues, as they desperately need each other in order to push their narratives.

I spoke to Ebner about the book and why she worries that these two ideologies are trapping us all in a spiral of mutually reinforcing hatreds.

In the category of: Who’s in charge??

An 8-year-old Guatemalan boy died late Christmas Eve in the custody of US Customs and Border Protection, the agency said, the second Guatemalan child to die in the agency’s custody this month.

Rep. Joaquin Castro, chairman-elect of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, identified the child in a statement as Felipe Alonzo-Gomez.

The boy, who was detained with his father, died shortly before midnight at Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center in Alamogordo, New Mexico, about 90 miles north of the border crossing in El Paso, Texas.